One year of John Salmon’s World!

Well, it’s one year to the day that I created John Salmon’s World. 25th August 2013 was when I decided it was time for me to put down my thoughts and feelings and let others see them.

There’d been a lot of frustration in my life up to that point. I’d been checking the Big Three (Exposing Feminism, I Don’t Need Feminism and Anti White-Knight Coalition) for a couple of months, not quite daring to do anything about it, not quite daring to comment. I did actually ‘like’ EF for a couple of months, but ended up unliking it as I worried what people would do if they saw it in my likes box.

Last summer I went on holiday and it was during this period I thought about starting a blog. There were times when I saw stuff on EF and other pages and I had stuff whirling round in my mind that I wanted to post but couldn’t. That was stifling, I felt like I couldn’t talk to anyone about it in my real life, I felt like I couldn’t go anywhere, like the stuff I wanted to say was weighing me down.

The final straw came when I posted something on my Facebook. It was the story that ended up being the subject of my first blog. Only one person commented and even then the conversation ended after a few comments and he simply stopped replying. It was then I decided I needed more, I needed to actually converse with people, to not only write down my views but also to be challenged. I felt like if I couldn’t even express my views then I couldn’t be challenged on them either.

So, I finally did something about it. I signed up with wordpress.com (completely at random, no rhyme or reason for choosing this site, it was just one of the first to come up on Google). Man, writing that first entry and posting it was like I was Atlas and my penance was forgiven.

Early on, I was still unsure about the direction of the blog, I wasn’t sure if people would read it if I made it explicitly anti-feminist. If you look at the ‘about’ section it’s clear that I was trying to make it as neutral as possible to the outsider. I couldn’t risk turning people away before I’d even posted a story. Over the course of the last year the focus of the blog has become explicitly anti-feminist. I’ve left the ‘about’ section intact simply because I keep forgetting to change it, no other reason.

So, what was the intention behind starting John Salmon’s World? In all honesty? It was simply for my own personal gratification. As I said, I felt like I couldn’t go anywhere with my views, felt like I couldn’t do anything. Writing the blog was simply meant as a way of getting my frustrations off my chest. If people happened to come into contact with it then that was simply a bonus, it wasn’t my intention to manufacture success, I just needed a release.

The first story was posted on this date, 25th august, last year. It was about a tweet Dr Phil posted regarding alcohol and sex. Needless to say it caused a bit of a shit storm:

It’s interesting to note that my views on rape culture have not changed, if anything they’ve only strengthened. I thought, looking back, I might have seen an initial uncertainty about the posts, but there isn’t, I still hold most of those views today.

While the blogs have got longer, the spirit behind them hasn’t. I still try and have fun with them, I try to make them readable, I try to add humour, I try to make them colloquial so as not to turn people off. I’m very aware that these are only my opinions and, as such, I try to never present myself as having the answers, this blog is mainly personal criticisms, explorations and refutations. I don’t claim to have the answers because I know I don’t have the answers. If I did I wouldn’t be an anonymous internet blogger, would I?

When I started the blog I never, ever, expected the reaction it’s got. I created a Facebook profile to promote it and, while it was slow going at first, Exposing Feminism shared one entry around October time and since then it’s just been onwards and upwards.

Some stats from the first year:

81 entries

15,765 hits

Highest number of views in one day: 417

To me, those numbers are amazing. I only ever wanted to ease my frustrations, the fact that others have joined for the ride is just the icing on the cake.

This blog wouldn’t have become half as successful as it has without the promotion on Facebook. Aside from the Big Three promoting the shit out of it, other pages and people have helped, Men’s Rights News and Anti Feminist Egalitarians being just two of them.

Not only has the blog received attention, but I have become admin of two amazing pages, pages that were instrumental in me even creating this blog: Exposing Feminism and The Anti White-Knight Coalition (AWKC, as it was, is no more, aside from Zer0 the entire admin team now post at The United Anti-Feminist Coalition (https://www.facebook.com/realawkc?ref=ts&fref=ts)). If you’d told me 13 months ago I’d be an admin of the pages that were my biggest influence I would have thought you were crazy!

So what now? Well, I have no intention of stopping, none at all. In fact the recent creation of a Youtube channel means I want this blog to reach even more people, especially those who don’t have the patience to read through my verbose ramblings. 98 people have subscribed to that channel. Again, more than I ever could have experienced.

I’ve mentioned before, I don’t see myself through the use of a label, I’m not a feminist, I’m not an MRA, I’m not humanitarian or egalitarian or humanist or equalist I’m just one man with views. I’ve become more comfortable with calling myself anti-feminist but I’m not one for labels. Do I hate all feminists? No. Do I hate all MRAs? No. I stand firmly in the middle, yes I lean towards men’s rights, but that’s because I’m a man and I don’t feel the issues I talk about get enough focus.

The point of this blog is very, very simple – I write it to ease my own frustrations with feminism. If it reaches one other person and speaks to them then I have been successful in my aims. That’s all I can ask for.

So thank you, all of you, the comments, both positive and negative, the shares, the likes, the follows, they have all made this year one of the best. All I ask if that you keep reading, you keep commenting and you keep me on my toes. Talk to me, challenge me, I do not have the answers, I don’t claim to know everything, my views are not set in stone but I will never shy away from a discussion because the second I claim to know it all is the second this blog, and John Salmon, needs to disappear.